


A Million Petty Souls

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [46]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Supernatural
Genre: Evan Lorne is secretly Cuthbert Sinclair, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 18:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7449562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, Any, <i>I've killed a million petty souls / But I couldn't kill you / I've slept so long without you.</i>"</p><p>In which the Goa'uld who possessed Caldwell was actually a yellow-eyed demon, Stevens can use a blood sigil to banish a fallen angel, and Evan Lorne uses unorthodox tactics to distract an enemy. Set during Season 2 of SGA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Million Petty Souls

When Caldwell’s eyes flared gold - John had never seen a Goa’uld before, didn’t realize it was like this - John swung his weapon up automatically.  
  
Beside him, Lorne did the same.  
  
And then Caldwell straightened up, all the fight seemingly draining out of him. And he said, “Magnus.”  
  
Lorne said, “Haven’t gone by that moniker in a long time.”  
  
John blinked. What?  
  
“It has been a long time,” Caldwell said, in that horrible Goa’uld voice. “Too long.”  
  
“You’ll have to tell me your name,” Lorne said. “I rarely remember a monster’s face.”  
  
Caldwell stepped toward him, and he said, “I am no monster. It is I, Shamsiel.”  
  
Lorne stepped back, eyes wide.  
  
Caldwell ducked his head, laughed low and throaty, and John darted a look at Rodney, a _what the hell?_  
  
“Don’t be afraid, Magnus,” Caldwell said. He reached out and caressed the side of Lorne’s face, and the other soldiers on the bridge recoiled in shock, because _regs_. “I’ve killed a million petty souls, but I couldn’t kill you. I’ve slept so long without you.”  
  
Damn, but someone was going to get court-martialed when this was done.  
  
Lorne swallowed hard, lifted his head, met Caldwell’s gaze. “What are the codes? To get back into the program and put the failsafes on the ZPM.”  
  
Caldwell tilted his head inquisitively. “What’s in it for me?”  
  
John saw Lorne signal subtly to Stevens, his XO, and Steven moved slowly, knelt, hid behind the rest of Lorne’s team. And then Lorne leaned in and kissed Caldwell.  
  
Even Elizabeth looked horrified.  
  
Caldwell broke the kiss, ran a hand down Lorne’s flank and grabbed his ass, yanked him close and purred. “You do remember me, don’t you?”  
  
Lorne murmured something in another language that sounded like Hebrew and included the word _Shamsiel_ and kissed Caldwell again. When he pulled back, Caldwell began to recite a string of numbers.  
  
The code.  
  
Rodney scrambled to type them into the control console.  
  
And then Lorne said, “Now!” and leaped back and there was a flash of light, brilliant blue, blinding, and John threw a hand up to cover his face.  
  
When he could see again, Caldwell was slumped on the ground, unconscious. The marines around Stevens had cleared a space, and John could see a bloody symbol drawn on the floor with a bloody hand print in the middle of it. Stevens knelt, clutching his bleeding hand, and stared at Caldwell. “It worked!”  
  
“What the hell just happened?” Elizabeth demanded, but then Rodney was snapping at Zelenka and the scientists were scrambling to fix the shields and defend the city, and in all the chaos, John lost track of Lorne.  
  
Hours later, John initiated the door to Lorne’s quarters.  
  
He was inside, packing.  
  
“Going somewhere?”  
  
“Back to Earth. I’m getting discharged. Not sure whether it’ll be honorable or not.”  
  
“Caldwell was obviously possessed by an alien entity,” John said. “You used - unorthodox tactics to distract him and defeat the alien. How did you do that, by the way? Stevens said you gave him the ‘sigil’ and told him how to draw it, to use blood, but he has no idea how it works.”  
  
“That’s a long, long story.” Lorne folded his shirts with military precision, all of them one foot square. “Unless you have a working knowledge of Enochian, inter-dimensional energy transfers, and sections of Genesis memorized verbatim, you probably wouldn’t enjoy the telling of it.”  
  
“Try me,” John said.  
  
Lorne shook his head. “It’s really not worth the time. I’ve learned what I needed to learn, and now it’s time to go home, resume my studies.”  
  
“Studies?”  
  
Lorne’s smile was kind and condescending all at once. “Don’t worry, Sheppard. Before this day is done, you won’t even remember me.”

*

  
John woke up in the infirmary with a roaring headache. Teldy stood beside him.  
  
“Beckett said you were doing better, sir.”  
  
He peered at her. “You hold the fort down while I was...out?”  
  
“Of course, sir.”  
  
She was a damn fine XO. “Well, thanks. What happened?”  
  
“Don’t you remember, sir? You fought Colonel Caldwell while he was possessed by the Goa’uld from The Trust.”  
  
And just like that, the memories slotted into place. Caldwell’s eyes going golden. John getting flung against a wall. But the way the memories flowed kept hitching. Must have been from smacking his head against the wall.  
  
“Tell Carson I want the blue jello,” John said.  
  
“You can tell him yourself, sir.” Teldy never put up with his nonsense, which was probably a good thing professionally, but sometimes John wanted someone who knew when to just let something go. Teldy turned and walked away, and John sat back, mind spinning.  
  
She really was a damn fine XO, but still...


End file.
